Cat Karina
by Michael G. Coney[ Science Fiction ]
Few true humans remain on the future Earth, where caimen, shrugleggers, and felinas dominate. The peoples are descendents of crocodiles, alien races, and jaguars, and they are much different than the humans--they are products of genetic experiments, created to perform specific functions. Some work in the swampy lands, others are the strong burden-bearers, but none are as beautiful as the felines-- not even the humans. And no one is worthy enough to win over the most attractive felina, Karina. She is a rare beauty of great prowess, with a tempting sculpted physique that could lure anyone to her.
One
The Song of Earth
"Step out of your shroud,
Alan-Blue-Cloud,
And sing us a Song of Earth."
-- Children's ditty of the Terminal Millennia
When everything else had run down, we will still have the legends of Old Earth.
There is a giant computer which straddles the world. It has its roots deep in the Fifty-second Millennium; that so-distant past when Man discovered electricity. It walked through history hand-in-hand with Man; it saw the building of the first Domes, it survived the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, it watched the Age of Resurgence, it fought Man's wars for him and even, in the Domes, lived his life for him. It became so powerful that it was able to observe practically everything that happened on Earth and, from this, project what was going to happen in the future -- or the If along, as it is more correctly called. Now, in these Dying Years, the computer is still there, still observing, thinking and predicting, in countless solar-powered centers all over Earth.
It is called the Rainbow.
I am called Alan-Blue-Cloud. In a way I am the Rainbow's interpreter. I am one of the few remaining beings who is able to operate a terminal, and I use this ability to draw true stories out of the computer; stories of True Humans and Specialists, of aliens and Bale Wolves and the sad neotenites known cruelly as Blubbers.
But true stories do not give the whole picture. During the later years of Earth people became dissatisfied with bare facts, which are always a little dull when compared with fictions and legends. So, when it seemed that Mankind was doomed forever to listen to the Truth, because that was all he could get out of his terminals and cassettes, an old art-form was rediscovered.
And Romance returned to Earth.
It started with a few bards and minstrels -- I will shortly tell you about one named Enriques de Jai'a. They ignored the Rainbow and they used their eyes and ears, listened to rumors and legends and dying old men. And they used their imagination, and their essential humanness. With these ingredients they created a whole new history of Mankind; a tapestry of events which was passed on by word of mouth -- and so could never become dull, inflexible, or accurate.
It is called the Song of Earth.
Copyright © 1982 by Michael Coney
